Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I mentioned this in the "What are you playing now" thread, but thought I'd give it its own topic.
City of Heroes is back!
For those who don't know, City of Heroes was/is a comic book superhero MMORPG that was shut down back in 2012 when NCSoft decided it wasn't making enough of a profit to keep the servers running. An amazing (to me) game, that bucked the trend of MMOs by ignoring the concept of the "holy trinity" of DPS/Tank/Healer and focusing on the path of playing from 1-50 rather than the endgame grind. With an extensive costume creation engine, you could look awesome from the very start, rather than having to wait and grind for high-level gear in order to look cool. It included two expansions, City of Villains which allowed you to play as villains, and then Going Rogue, which allowed your heroes to become villains and vice versa.

Anyway, I'm a little fuzzy on the exact details, but apparently there has been a secret server for some time now, and within the past few months the code to running private servers has been released to the public, and now we have City of Heroes: Homecoming. Already running five servers to handle the load of people wanting to play again.

For those wanting to give it a whirl, here are the install instructions:
https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,950.0.html

It's hard to say how great it is to see that loading screen again, to hear the character creation screen music (something my altoholism was very familiar with), and to fly around Atlas Park once again.

It's uncertain what the future for it may be, though. NCSoft could choose to take legal action at any time. For now, I'm just enjoying it while I can.

Edit: I'm on the Excelsior server.

This game was my first introduction to the term "Korean grinder". While the character generation was awesome, the grind was killer. I can't imagine doing this without a dedicated group of good friends to shoot the breeze with during the endless grind.

An interesting choice of words, given that CoH was the very opposite of Korean style MMOs at the time. I mean, i get that higher levels were slower to work through, especially in the game's earlier years when the story arcs weren't as fleshed out and flashy as they were in later years. It's just odd because I remember when it launched in Korea and didn't do so well because it didn't meet Korean expectations of what a MMO should be.

CoH/V was pretty generous for the time period. I mean compare it to an actual Korean Grind style mmo like say, Rising Force Online, where the default server settings had it take a week or two of four or five hours per day of work to level up once.

 Melissia wrote:
Rising Force Online

Wow.. I didn't know anyone really knew about RF Online. ^_^ I miss that game.

I do also miss CoH. Great game to kill 15-30 minutes without feeling overwhelmed and still feel like you accomplish something.

I liked RF Online when I played on private servers where there was like a 100 times xp gain and drop rate. Cause otherwise I could never devote enough time to it to make any meaningful progress.

It was one of the first truly dedicated pvp mmos.

I liked the City of Villains expansion as it added the robot pet class.

I miss my little robot army in that game.

I am guessing these hidden servers are only for CoH?

 Draco765 wrote:

I am guessing these hidden servers are only for CoH?

Nope, full game: City of Heroes/Villains/Going Rogue, all the way up to and including the content that was being tested at the time the game was shut down.
And a lot of the stuff that was limited to people who bought the collector's editions, veteran's rewards, etc., are free to get ingame from the "Pay 2 Win Vendor". All costume parts are unlocked from the start, and supergroup bases are free to build.

Reaaaally? Now I'm sold. I loved Going Rogue, being able to create any class I wanted on either side was great.

 Breotan wrote:
This game was my first introduction to the term "Korean grinder". While the character generation was awesome, the grind was killer. I can't imagine doing this without a dedicated group of good friends to shoot the breeze with during the endless grind.

City of Heroes was published by a Korean company, but it wasn't a Korean game. It was developed by Cryptic Studios, which was an American company. They later went on to make games like Champions Online and Star Trek Online before being acquired by Perfect World Entertainment. There was a grind in City of Heroes. But it wasn't anything worse than what was found in pre-WoW Western MMORPGs.

Of course, WoW was released just a couple of months before City of Heroes, and completely up-ended the way things worked. But up until that point, a grind like the one in City of Heroes would have been normal. When compared to Asian MMORPGs popular at the time - like NCSoft's own Lineage 2, or SE's FFXI (which had a much milder grind than most Asian games), it wasn't bad at all.

Eumerin wrote:
Of course, WoW was released just a couple of months before City of Heroes

After, not before. CoH was released in April 2004. WoW in november 2004-- about half a year later, not "a couple months before".

Been playing, haven't the time others have spent. There were Level 50+ within a week of these servers going public.

Been enjoying some of the newer content too. One Arc on the Villain side is straight up hilarious.

I loved this game, loved the community and need to give this a shot later.

I will have to take a look at this game, i remember seeing it but being interested in other things.

I wouldn't Worry about NcSoft, there are loads of Lineage 2 private servers that have been around for a long time and they could care less.

Kind of worried about how much everything seems to think this is a virus.....

 LunarSol wrote:
Kind of worried about how much everything seems to think this is a virus.....

Because companies pay antivirus companies to detect harmless but competing software as viruses.